Voonik acqui-hires TrialKart for virtual dressing feature

Personalised fashion e-commerce aggregator Voonik, run by Voonik Technologies Pvt Ltd, has acqui-hired TrialKart, a mobile platform that provides virtual dressing room experience. The TrialKart site now redirects to Voonik and its independent app is no longer accessible.

Acqui-hire refers to the buy-out of a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff, rather than for its products or services.

"By acqui-hiring TrialKart, we will now be able to offer their virtual dressing room solution to our customers as well as enlist the expertise of their team to create the 'image intelligence division' to boost the backend infrastructure for Voonik," said Sujayath Ali, co-founder and CEO of Voonik.

Before it was pulled down, the TrialKart mobile app enabled users to choose any listed product and click on the 'Try' option to visualise how the piece of clothing or accessory would look on them. They can also zoom in, readjust and reorient the product to get a holistic picture.

"We are excited to be a part of the Voonik family and are looking forward to innovating further to bring about greater disruption in the fashion e-retail space in India. Voonik has made tremendous headway by offering the most personalised and compelling shopping experience," said Harsha M, founder of TrialKart.

TrialKart was launched in February 2015 by Harsha, Jayalakshmi Manohar and Vipul Divyanshu.

Bengaluru-based Voonik claims to have nearly 2.5 million app downloads to date. In June this year, it had raised $5 million from Sequoia Capital and existing investor Seedfund in a Series A round of funding.

It offers multiple e-stores on a single platform and lets consumers shop in a single checkout. Besides a web version it also offers an app where users can mix and match from styles and stock keeping units across other fashion e-tailers like Jabong, Fashionara and Zovi.

Other players in the online retailing space, such as Flipkart and Myntra, are also launching their image recognition features. Flipkart had recently enabled its image search feature, while Myntra is collaborating with an artificial intelligence startup called Madstreetden.

Some like eyewear e-tailer Lenskart has been offering virtual trial of glasses for years.